


Fur-baby reunion

by imsfire



Series: Jyn Week 2018 Prompts [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Feels, Gen, Hoth setting, Jyn is a cat person, Jyn loves her fur-baby, coming home to people who love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 02:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14761241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: A couple of months ago on Garel, Jyn adopted a stray tooka.  She's just been away on her first mid-length mission since then.  Cassian and Tooky welcome her home.





	Fur-baby reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbird/gifts).



> For Jyn Appreciation Week, day six; prompt, Reunion.

It’s cold, bitter biting lancing cold; and it feels so good.  Cold that eats through every layer of clothing.  The cold of home.  Jyn strides down the passageway, breath puffing white against white, into the south barracks and the officers’ quarters.  Home, home, home; her door, her room, her space, her family.  She’s early, they made good time on the way back; she slows as she gets to the door and reaches up to key in the entry code silently.  It will be nice to give Cassian a happy surprise. 

Two heads swing round when she walks in; one human and one feline.  Both of them stare and then smile their unique smiles.

“Jyn!” says Cassian. “You’re home!”

“Mmreow!” says Tooky.

She holds out her arms as the door slides shut behind her, and Cassian scoops the cat out of his lap and rises.  There’s a moment’s tangled amusement as he tries to hug Jyn with Tooky hanging on one arm, then she embraces them both and kisses him over the cat’s head.

“Welcome home,” he says.  Their code, their magic password.  Jyn smiles up into his dark eyes. 

Home, home, home.

The tooka-cat starts to wriggle and protest, and their moment breaks in quiet laughter.  “Attention-seeker!” Jyn says, and Tooky meows loudly at the slur.

It’s the first time since they brought him back from Garel that she’s been away from Hoth for more than a couple of days.  She takes the cat from Cassian and sits down on the bunk to give him a proper cuddle, and he squirms and butts up against her, mewing constantly and kneading her thighs with his bony feet, and his claws.

“Ouch.  Easy with the needles, there.  Yes, I know, hello, gorgeous boy, mama’s fluffy-breeches…”

When she stops for a moment, she sees Cassian is just switching off his data-pad.  He tucks in the desk chair and stretches before settling beside her and putting his arm round her waist. “Your fluffy-breeches has been making quite a name for himself, you know.” He places a quick kiss on the side of her head.

“Oh, boy.” She can only imagine what this might mean.  She strokes the tooka affectionately, and tries to keep up a suitably stern voice in response to his enthusiastic purring. “What have you been up to, you horror?”

“What hasn’t he been up to, more like?  Tooky here broke into the mess hall the day after you left.  Ate half a pot of pancakes in cheese sauce.  I spent the rest of the day expecting him to throw it all back up, but apparently he has the digestion of a womp-rat.  Then there's the fact he keeps getting into the map room and going to sleep on the e-chart reader.  Which would be cute except that he sheds all over it.  I’m guessing he likes it because it’s warm, but not everyone wants to have to wipe cat-hairs off their equipment at the start of a shift.”

“You’ve been a pest, haven’t you?” Jyn carries on stroking and Tooky carries on purring, and when she looks up Cassian is smiling down at them both.  He looks pretty indulgent for a man who’s had to deal with a nuisance cat for ten days, so she cuddles Tooky again, bending to rub her face in his clean, sweet-scented fur. “Naughty fuzz-bum.”  She looks up quickly, gauging Cassian’s reaction.

Cassian gives a little cough. “There’s more.  He’s discovered the ice-scrabblers are a lot of fun to chase, and whenever he catches one he eats about half of it and leaves the other half some random place.  People just come upon them.  Then they comm me.  Finding bits of dead rodent in the passage, or on the floor of the main ’fresher, in the middle of the night, it’s not very nice, you know?  I’ve had to apologise several times.  Then, I left my data-pad unlocked one time and he walked across it when I wasn’t looking and wrote a string of nonsense into the middle of one of my reports.  If I hadn’t proof-read before I sent it I could have passed that on to command.”

Jyn pulls a face.  This is beginning to sound less of a joke.

“And the day before yesterday he sneaked into a briefing and went straight for General Draven.”

“Shit.” Jyn hugs the cat properly this time, because that is not good, there’s no chance Draven will have been amused by –“Please tell me he didn’t bite him?”

There’s a moment’s silence before Cassian suddenly grins. “I’m sorry.  It’s okay.  I shouldn’t tease.”

“What? – you’re winding me up?  You mean Tooky didn’t do all these things?  Beast.” She digs him firmly in the ribs. “You had me worried.”

“Oh no, he did all of it and more.  He’s an absolute pest and a horror and a monster.  Dismembered scrabblers, dander in the map-reader, the pancakes.  He sits in the mess-hall and begs off people, like no-one’s ever fed him, ever.  Big tragic eyes, yowling pathetically, all the theatrics.  He completely freaks people out sometimes by doing that giant inflatable-cat act out of the blue.  Solo’s co-pilot wants to adopt him now, but between you and me, I think he was a little scared the first time they met.  That briefing I told you about? - he jumped up on the General’s lap and sat down like he owned the man.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  Turns out Draven likes cats, so it was alright, once he’d got over the initial surprise.” He has both arms round her now, embracing her and the cat together.  They’re all sliding down in a heap together on the bed.  She tucks her head under his chin, and the tooka tucks himself under hers.

“The thing is,” Cassian goes on “Tooky here has a lot of other strengths besides stealing and shedding fur and appropriating senior officers’ laps.  He spends time every day in the children’s centre, all the kids are madly in love with him.  He watches over Shara Bey’s baby like it’s an official appointment.  He goes by the med-bay and sits with patients and lets them pet him.  And when someone found a single block of cream-candy in a case of nutrient bars and things almost came to blows over who should have it, he solved the argument.  By stealing it and eating it.  I guess that wasn’t as popular as consoling sick people and playing with kids.  But no-one got hurt.  And he still didn’t throw up, even with a belly full of candy.”

“Candy is very bad for cats, Tooky.” Jyn rubs the fluffy ears under her hand. “We have to train you to do more of the making nice with people and less of the stealing.  If I can learn to, then so can you.”

The cat stands up, treading firmly in the soft part of her tummy as if to make a point.  She grunts and laughs.  He turns around a couple of times and then fits himself carefully into the small gap between their bodies; makes one more circle and curls up in a tight ball, taking possession of them both.

“He’s settling in okay, I think.” Cassian’s voice is warm.  Tooky has started purring again.  She goes on stroking his soft fur, curling herself round to make more room for him and wrap her arm over Cassian as well. 

It’s strange, to come home to people who love you, after years of knowing neither home nor love. “Did you miss me, beautiful?” Jyn asks.

“I did,” Cassian says, and kisses the crown of her head as she laughs. “And so did Tooky.  Welcome back, welcome home.”

“It’s good to be back,” she agrees. “Home with my people.”

“Always.”


End file.
